Editor insists prospective reporters apply only via Twitter

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A regional newspaper editor who has vacancies for junior and senior reporters has insisted that applicants confine themselves to 140 characters in their covering letters.

Editorial director of Northcliffe’s South East group of weekly newspapers Alan Geere said he is “fed up reading turgid ‘letters of application’ and monstrous CVs outlining an early career in retail handling and a flirtation with the upper slopes of the Andes”.

So he has insisted that those wishing to apply for the vacancies on the award-winning Essex Chronicle and its sister titles should do so only via Twitter.

Writing on his blog he said: “They’ve got 140 characters to tell me what they can do and why I should consider them.

“I keep getting told there is an over-supply of qualified people wanting to do journalism. Well, maybe there is but there’s definitely not an over-supply of people who are any good.”